On Wednesday, April 24 at 3 p.m., Jamila Michener, an associate professor of government at Cornell University and this year’s Provost’s Distinguished Visiting Faculty Fellow, will deliver the Provost’s Lecture on Diversity: Power From the Margins and the Promise of Democracy.

Pundits, scholars, and ordinary people alike lament the decline of democracy in the contemporary United States. Trust in democratic institutions is at a nadir while political cynicism and support for authoritarianism are on the rise. In this broader context of political malaise, where are the avenues for building a more robust democratic polity? Drawing on insights from qualitative research, Dr. Michener will highlight how building power within racially and economically marginalized communities around issues directly related to their material interests (like health and housing) is a promising pathway. Grassroots political organizing is (perhaps unexpectedly) an antidote to the social cleavages that accelerate democratic backsliding. Such organizing can forge a route to transforming both the polity and the political economy so that both are more attuned to communities that teeter at the margins of the existing power structures. 

The lecture will be held in Michael A. Fitts Auditorium at the Penn Carey Law School and is sponsored by the Office of the Provost. 

Please register at https://upenn.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_e3euXcpGXKgbH0i.